Only seven more months?

I would like to modify my earlier comment about showers. Cool showers are refreshing in the summer. When it is cold, however, there is nothing like a hot steamy shower. We do have hot water here but it's not the same because, standing in a bucket, one can't use a very high volume of water or leave it on the whole time. More than once now on chilly mornings I have thought, The first thing I am going to do when I get back to the US in December is take a long, luxurious hot shower, and how delicious it will be against the cold weather... And then I think of the enormous amount of water that takes, and how little I use here, and I wonder whether we who have access to water will ever be able to force ourselves to use it more responsibly, as long as the supply seems endless and it's so cold outside on those northern winter mornings. It's literally a question of global awareness and concern for the future vs. my immediate comfort. And I just don't know how much hope there is for the former in that contest. Even for me, even after living here for a year and seeing the struggles that so many people have with water, I will not be surprised if a long, luxurious hot shower really is the first thing I do when I get back home. If or when the supply of water in America physically runs out, then we might start to see some real changes...

When I first came, a year felt like forever; now only seven more months seems way too short! All of a sudden Catherine and I are both really busy in the school and the parish. In addition to my English groups, Comunicación classes, and choirs (I'm working on getting two rehearsals per week with each), and Catherine's English groups, English classes, English clubs, and tutoring students in English, we are team-teaching a beginning English class for adults and adolescents in the parish on Tuesday-Thursday nights. It is a ton of fun because some of the students are our friends from the church choir, others bring their young children, and it is a relaxed but interested atmosphere (and they take notes without being told to copy the board! So amazing!). It's a tad frustrating when people waltz in 20 minutes late, however, and say Good Evening like nothing happened. We have scolded them to come on time, but it doesn't do much good. 20 minutes late is practically standard for some Peruvians, and as for parties, we've learned not to show up until an hour after it supposedly starts.Some changes in my work at the school that I am really excited about: I am now going to have my literature discussion with the Comunicación kids during their two-period class instead of their one-period class, so I get them for an hour and a half per week instead of 45 minutes! Maybe I will actually get some things discussed! Also, two of the best students in the class responded with real interest to my offer of private tutoring in how to write essays about the books we read. They are utterly bored in class and want to do more interesting things, and moreover, they will need to be able to write about what they read if they want to go to college. Angela, the one girl who always gets 100% on everything, has just been dying for something else to challenge her--I saw it first in her reading quizzes and then in the little sparkle in her eyes when I proposed that she come for lessons on how to write essays. I am so excited to get her and Karen on their own and get into some of the more interesting things going on in these books, and then get them writing about them!

Last Friday, my choirs sang for the first time during the performances for Mother's Day! Mother's Day is the biggest holiday I have experienced yet in Peru--all the stores go nuts with advertising, things close the Friday before and the Monday after, there are half-days at school and the mothers are invited to see the kids put on dance numbers in their honor. The graduating class did an amazing traditional dance from the sierra. It looks almost like Valentine's Day with all the hearts and roses and cards and flowery poetry for Mamá spilling out of every store, not to mention the long speeches after church in praise of mothers and the raffles of pretty baskets filled with all sorts of foodstuffs for the house. (One of the speakers after church, a mother herself, even mentioned that the best thing to do for one's mother is to cook dinner once in a while and let her rest. But in general the ceremonies focus on how loving and giving mothers are and how children should always remember them and care for them... it's really very touching. Peruvians are very good at tenderness, at honoring love and devotion, especially in families.) Anyway, each of my choirs, the fourth graders and the 9th-11th graders, sang a song for their moms.

Neither was really in tune, but the microphone situation was not great either, so you couldn't really tell the difference in the end--and the kids really enjoyed it. One of the fourth graders, just before we went up to sing, said to me with a huge grin on his face, "Señorita, Señorita! Somos el coro nosotros!" (We're the choir!) . I said, yes, you are the fourth grade choir of Fe y Alegría 34! Are you proud of yourselves? and got a resounding ¡Sí! It was ridiculously cute. And I am so proud of them because they are learning to sing do, mi, and sol in tune! They don't have high do yet, but we're working on that.

So for all those reasons, a year suddenly seems like way too short a time to do the work we're doing. After December, who is going to keep the choirs going? Will the current 10th graders learn to write essays about the books they read if I leave? As unqualified as I sometimes feel to be doing those things, I can tell they are needed, and it's so exciting to be bringing something to the school that wasn't there before. And I find myself thinking, is it possible that I might want to stay another year? I had never entertained the thought until recently, but just knowing how long it takes to find one's niche, and thinking of new volunteers having to start over every year, and starting to feel part of the community a bit... one wonders. But then I call my mom and hear about everything going on with my own family in the US, and I want to be there too. So we'll see. Graduate school hovers on the horizon in my future, but I'm in no hurry to start that; for now I'm very happy to be here.